Mount Hebron Robotics Team Raring To Go

Who are the Mount Hebron Robo-Rams? They are members of the middle school's robotics team who are raring for a win this weekend at the regional robotics competition held at Clifton High School on Saturday.

Indeed, about 10 students were working hard after school this week, programming a robot to complete various missions.

"The beauty of this is that it's completely student-driven," said teacher Consuelo Ortiz.

Another teacher, Didier White, noted that many of the students participating this year were part of the team last year.

"This year I think most of the kids have experience so that means the team is more cohesive," he said.

The Nov. 19 regional challenge is a free event and is open to the public. The event will showcase the work of 24 teams from Montclair and around New Jersey who are competing to earn a place in the state tournament and who hope to qualify for the national or world championship held in April.

The middle school teams are using a LEGO kit to construct a small robot they will program to work autonomously on different tasks.

If you want to check out the Mount Hebron team's progress, come to the Union Congregational Church at 176 Cooper AVenue tonight, Nov. 18, at 7 p.m.

There, as part of the FIRST Lego League Robotics Competition, middle school teams will be asked to present their research projects put together around the theme of food safety. The students will describe the contamination or spoiling problem their team chose to research and their innovative solution.

The town's robotics program introduces 9- to 14-year-old students to real-world engineering challenges by building LEGO-based robots to complete tasks on a theme. Meetings of the Montclair Society of Engineers are free and open to members and non-members.